It’s an old adage: oil & water don’t mix. And there have been a lot of examples in recent months that demonstrate the truth of those words. Off the top of my head, I can think of an oil spill into a creek in Utah, an oil pipeline spewing heavy crude into a bay in China, and, of course, the mega-spill in the Gulf of Mexico (link to a time-lapsed video from NASA).
From a technical standpoint, oil and water don’t mix for the simple reason that both oil and water molecules have a stronger affinity for their own kind than for the other. Also, oil is less dense than water, so it tends to float on the surface of the water. Unless it’s cold and heavy, like some of the oil that spewed into the Gulf of Mexico a mile below the surface. Then, the oil may find itself in a limbo somewhere between the sea surface and the seafloor. It still does not mix with the water, but it doesn’t rise to the surface, so it is hard to find and nearly impossible to clean up.
I’ve been trying to come up with a good local analogy to put the Gulf oil disaster into local terms. The website www.ifitwasmyhome.com shows the extent of the oil superimposed upon any geographic region on the planet. So, for scale, imagine placing Woodstock at the center. The oil slick would extend north to south from Milwaukee to Kankakee and east to west from central Iowa across Lake Michigan to the state of Michigan.
Another way to think about the Gulf spill: What if tar balls (globs of thick oil) started washing up on Main Beach in Crystal Lake? What if one of the Wonder Lake Water ski team members wiped out, and emerged from the water covered in thick oil? Or what if boating on the Chain of Lakes had to be cancelled because the Fire Department was burning the surface to reduce the amount of oil floating there? Local residents would be outraged, that’s what.
Sure, the ocean is very large, and by comparison, the amount of oil released may be small, but any amount is too much when it washes up on a community’s beach, fouls one’s oyster beds, or ruins a family’s livelihood or even someone’s summer vacation.
Fortunately for local residents, the chance of a disaster involving an oil well or pipeline leak is very small. But the risk isn’t zero, as there are oil pipelines that cross McHenry County. The concern in this area could be that an underground pipeline developed a leak and oil seeped into an underground aquifer, rather than oil spewing into a lake or wetland. In this scenario, the leak might go unnoticed for many months or even years until oil turned up in an unsuspecting neighbor’s well water.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling for a removal of the pipelines, nor do I think a local disaster of this nature is anything but a theoretical possibility. After all, I drive a car that is fueled by gasoline, which is in turn produced from oil like that which flows through the pipelines that pass through our area.
My point is simply that there are existing threats to our precious groundwater – the lifeblood of our community. The water that all residents need to live comes from the underground reservoirs of sand a gravel that were left by the glaciers over 12,000 years ago! Whether the threat is pollution or overuse, the security of local water supplies should matter to all residents. For what is a house worth if there is no water to flush the toilets, or if the well water is fouled?
From a technical standpoint, oil and water don’t mix for the simple reason that both oil and water molecules have a stronger affinity for their own kind than for the other. Also, oil is less dense than water, so it tends to float on the surface of the water. Unless it’s cold and heavy, like some of the oil that spewed into the Gulf of Mexico a mile below the surface. Then, the oil may find itself in a limbo somewhere between the sea surface and the seafloor. It still does not mix with the water, but it doesn’t rise to the surface, so it is hard to find and nearly impossible to clean up.
I’ve been trying to come up with a good local analogy to put the Gulf oil disaster into local terms. The website www.ifitwasmyhome.com shows the extent of the oil superimposed upon any geographic region on the planet. So, for scale, imagine placing Woodstock at the center. The oil slick would extend north to south from Milwaukee to Kankakee and east to west from central Iowa across Lake Michigan to the state of Michigan.
Another way to think about the Gulf spill: What if tar balls (globs of thick oil) started washing up on Main Beach in Crystal Lake? What if one of the Wonder Lake Water ski team members wiped out, and emerged from the water covered in thick oil? Or what if boating on the Chain of Lakes had to be cancelled because the Fire Department was burning the surface to reduce the amount of oil floating there? Local residents would be outraged, that’s what.
Sure, the ocean is very large, and by comparison, the amount of oil released may be small, but any amount is too much when it washes up on a community’s beach, fouls one’s oyster beds, or ruins a family’s livelihood or even someone’s summer vacation.
Fortunately for local residents, the chance of a disaster involving an oil well or pipeline leak is very small. But the risk isn’t zero, as there are oil pipelines that cross McHenry County. The concern in this area could be that an underground pipeline developed a leak and oil seeped into an underground aquifer, rather than oil spewing into a lake or wetland. In this scenario, the leak might go unnoticed for many months or even years until oil turned up in an unsuspecting neighbor’s well water.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling for a removal of the pipelines, nor do I think a local disaster of this nature is anything but a theoretical possibility. After all, I drive a car that is fueled by gasoline, which is in turn produced from oil like that which flows through the pipelines that pass through our area.
My point is simply that there are existing threats to our precious groundwater – the lifeblood of our community. The water that all residents need to live comes from the underground reservoirs of sand a gravel that were left by the glaciers over 12,000 years ago! Whether the threat is pollution or overuse, the security of local water supplies should matter to all residents. For what is a house worth if there is no water to flush the toilets, or if the well water is fouled?
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